As artificial intelligence reshapes the U.S. economy, Congress has a timely opportunity to modernize and expand a proven, bipartisan workforce solution: the national service system AmeriCorps.
Mounting evidence shows that AI adoption is accelerating the erosion of entry‑level jobs – the traditional “first-rung” on the career ladder – particularly for young adults. A recent Stanford University analysis of payroll data from more than 25 million workers found that employment for workers ages 22–25 in AI‑exposed occupations has declined by 13% since 2022, even as employment for older workers in the same roles remained stable or grew.
At the same time, private-sector investment in training has steadily declined. U.S. employer training expenditures fell 3.7% in 2024, continuing a multi‑year downward trend, making it harder for young workers to gain paid, work-based experience.
Employers are also placing increasing value on human-centered, durable skills – adaptability, teamwork, judgment, and communication – that are not easily replaced by AI.
A new paper, Powering Workforce Resilience in the Age of AI: The Case for AmeriCorps, outlines how Congress can modernize AmeriCorps so it functions as workforce infrastructure – a structured, earn-and-learn pathway into employment that helps young Americans build skills, experience, and economic mobility while delivering critical public services. The paper was released by a coalition including the EDSAFE AI Alliance, City Year, Partnership for Student Success, and Voices for National Service.
- Explore the executive summary.
Here are five concrete policy actions that will strengthen and expand AmeriCorps as a critical part of our nation’s workforce infrastructure and a protected entry point into the labor market. Together, these reforms would position AmeriCorps as a core component of our workforce strategy.
1. Update AmeriCorps Benefits to Match Workforce Demand
AmeriCorps engages more than 200,000 members annually across its programs, including AmeriCorps Seniors, and since 1993, more than 1.3 million individuals have served as AmeriCorps members.
The Segal AmeriCorps Education Award is earned through service and tied in value to the maximum Pell Grant. Yet unlike Pell, the award is treated as taxable income, effectively reducing its value for those who have completed a year of service.
The Education Award can be used to pay for higher education expenses at any Title IV-eligible institution. However, it remains largely tethered to a traditional higher‑education model that does not fully accommodate the growing demand for short-term credentials, industry certifications, and non-traditional learning pathways.
Meanwhile, hiring practices are rapidly changing. By 2024, 76% of employers reported using some form of skills‑based hiring, and more than half of U.S. employers have dropped degree requirements for at least some roles.
As a result, the award is misaligned with both how people learn and how employers hire today.
Policy action steps:
- Expand Segal Education Award uses for short‑term credentials and industry certifications outside of Title IV institutions.
- Align the Education Award with Workforce Pell and other short‑term training frameworks.
- Exclude the Education Award from federal and state taxation, eliminating a penalty imposed uniquely on those who serve.
Why it matters:
With reform, AmeriCorps can become a more direct launchpad into high‑demand sectors – including healthcare, education, public safety, disaster response and recovery, and conservation and land management – where employers are already hiring based on skills.
2. Align AmeriCorps with Workforce and Credentialing Systems
Despite serving similar populations, AmeriCorps and the federally funded workforce development programs under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) operate largely in parallel silos. This fragmentation limits scale and missed opportunities to align funding, training, and career pathways for participants – even as economic disruption grows.
By 2025, economists estimated that up to 40% of U.S. workers would require short‑term reskilling to remain competitive in a more automated economy.
Policy action steps:
- Define AmeriCorps explicitly within WIOA as work‑based learning or pre‑apprenticeship.
- Allow AmeriCorps participants to access WIOA‑funded training and supportive services.
- Allow organizations deploying AmeriCorps members to braid funding with WIOA resources, enabling integrated service-and-training models without duplicative administrative barriers.
- Establish AmeriCorps performance measures aligned with workforce outcomes such as credentials earned and job placement.
Why it matters:
Recognizing service as work‑based learning builds a seamless on‑ramp to employment, reducing duplication while increasing accountability for taxpayer dollars. It also allows employers to recognize AmeriCorps experience within existing hiring and training systems.
3. Remove Outdated Regulatory Barriers
Several AmeriCorps rules – designed decades ago – now limit workforce relevance. Chief among them is the 80/20 rule, which caps education and training at 20% of service hours.
This limitation comes at a time when average employer spending on training has declined significantly over the past decade and when experiential learning is increasingly essential.
Current AmeriCorps rules also significantly restrict partnerships with for-profit employers – even when those partnerships could provide high-quality, work-based learning experiences tied to clear public benefits such as healthcare access, education support, or disaster response.
Policy action steps:
- Repeal the 20% cap on education and training.
- Permit carefully structured partnerships with for‑profit employers that deliver clear public benefit and align with AmeriCorps’ service mission.
Why it matters:
Modern workforce development is iterative and experiential. Restricting structured learning undermines exactly the human-centered skills – judgment, adaptability, teamwork, and problem-solving – that AI cannot replicate and employers increasingly demand.
4. Strengthen Pathways from Service to Employment
AmeriCorps already functions in many respects like an apprenticeship system. However, AmeriCorps rules conflict with Registered Apprenticeship requirements – particularly around compensation, allowable activities, and program structure – making it difficult to align the two systems and limiting the ability to scale earn-and-learn models nationally.
Policy action steps:
- Resolve conflicts between AmeriCorps rules and Registered Apprenticeship requirements, enabling programs to operate seamlessly across both systems.
- Allow service and training hours to count across workforce systems.
- Establish a Workforce or Apprenticeship AmeriCorps model.
- Permit early exit from AmeriCorps for verified employment after meaningful service completion.
Why it matters:
AI‑driven labor markets reward speed and adaptability. These reforms would accelerate time‑to‑employment, boosting economic mobility while meeting real labor market needs.
5. Make Durable Skills Visible to Employers
While employers increasingly value “durable” or human-centered skills, they struggle to verify them – especially as 87% of companies now use AI‑driven tools in hiring. These include skills such as managing teams, navigating ambiguity, and working across differences – capabilities that are increasingly critical in AI-augmented workplaces.
Policy action steps:
- Create a standardized AmeriCorps credential or digital badge validating competencies such as teamwork, cross‑cultural communication, and crisis response.
- Invest in longitudinal data systems tracking post‑service employment outcomes.
Why it matters:
Research shows that hiring for skills is five times more predictive of job performance than hiring based on education alone. Making service‑earned skills legible ensures AmeriCorps experience translates directly into labor‑market value.
A Bipartisan Opportunity Congress Can Seize Now
The AmeriCorps system–that has developed and evolved for more than 30 years–delivers results and enjoys deep bipartisan support. Recent polling shows that 70% of Republican voters, 73% of Independents, and 79% of Democrats support AmeriCorps after learning about the program.
These reforms do not expand AmeriCorps’ mission – they modernize it for the economic realities in the age of AI.
The policy imperative is straightforward: If the private sector is investing less in entry‑level talent, the nation must step in to build the workforce pipeline.
AmeriCorps already has the infrastructure, public trust, and bipartisan durability to meet this challenge – if Congress modernizes it to match today’s economy and tomorrow’s workforce needs.
Call to Action
➡️ Read the full paper, Powering Workforce Resilience in the Age of AI, to explore how Congress can modernize AmeriCorps as workforce infrastructure and protect economic opportunity for the next generation.